Philip, who was through his father senior representative of the earls of Arundel down to 1415, and through his mother sole representative of the subsequent earls, was summoned to parliament as earl in January 1581, but was attainted in 1589. His son Thomas was restored to the earldom and certain other honours in 1604, and, in 1627, obtained an act of parliament “concerning the title, name and dignity of Earl of Arundel, and for the annexing of the Castle, Honour, Manor and Lordship of Arundel ... with the titles and dignities of the Baronies of Fitzalan, Clun and Oswaldestre, and Maltravers, ... to the same title, name and dignity of Earl of Arundel.” This act, which was based on the earl’s allegation that the title had been “invariably used and enjoyed” by the owners of the castle, “and by reason of the said inheritance and seisin,” has been much discussed, especially in the Lords’ Reports (i. 430-434). There is no doubt that the earl’s object was to entail the earldom and the castle strictly on a certain line of heirs, and this was effected by elaborate remainders (passing over the Howards, earls of Suffolk). It is under this act of parliament that the earldom has been held ever since, and that it passed with the castle in 1777 to the heir-male of the Howards, although the representation in blood then passed to heirs general. Thus the castle and the earldom cannot be alienated from the line of heirs on whom it is entailed by the act of 1627; while the heirship in blood of the earlier earls (to 1415) is vested in Lords Mowbray and Petre and the Baroness Berkeley, and that of the later earls (to 1777) in Lords Mowbray and Petre.
The precedence of the earldom was challenged in 1446 by Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, owing to the question as to its descent spoken of above, but the king in council confirmed to the earl the precedence of his ancestors “by reason of the Castle, Honour and Lordship of Arundel.” In the act of 1627 the “places” and “pre-eminences” belonging to the earldom were secured to it. It would appear, however, that the decision of the dispute with the earl of Devon in 1446 restricts that precedency to such as the earl’s ancestors had enjoyed, if indeed it goes farther than to guarantee his precedence over the earl of Devon. But as there is no other existing earldom older than that of Shrewsbury (1442), the present position of Arundel as the premier earldom is beyond dispute.
See Lords’ Reports on the Dignity of a Peer; Dugdale’s Baronage; Tierney’s History of Arundel; G.E. C[okayne]’s Complete Peerage; Round’s Geoffrey de Mandeville; Pike’s Constitutional History of the House of Lords.
(J. H. R.)
ARUNDEL, EARLS OF. According to Cokayne (Complete Peerage, i. p. 138, note a) there is an old Sussex tradition to the effect that
| “Since William rose and Harold fell There have been earls of Arundel.” |
This, he adds, “is the case if for ‘of’ we read ‘at.’” The questions involved in this distinction are discussed in the preceding article on the earldom of Arundel, now held by the duke of Norfolk. The present article is confined to a biographical sketch of the more conspicuous earls of Arundel, first in the Fitzalan line, and then in the Howard line.
Richard Fitzalan (1267-1302), earl of Arundel, was a son of John, lord of Arundel (1246-1272), and a grandson of another John, lord of Arundel, Clun and Oswaldestre (Oswestry), who took a prominent, if somewhat wavering, part in the troubles during the reign of Henry III., and who died in November 1267. Richard, who was called earl of Arundel about 1289, fought for Edward I. in France and in Scotland, and died on the 9th of March 1302.
He was succeeded by his son, Edmund (1285-1326), who married Alice, sister of John, earl de Warenne. A bitter enemy of Piers Gaveston, Arundel was one of the ordainers appointed in 1310; he declined to march with Edward II. to Bannockburn, and after the king’s humiliation he was closely associated with Thomas, earl of Lancaster, until about 1321, when he became connected with the Despensers and sided with the king. He was faithful to Edward to the last, and was executed at Hereford by the partisans of Queen Isabella on the 17th of November 1326.